We're Gonna Die, Aren't We?
by Mizz Neko
Summary: Trapped in a building with only one other person. No food. No change of clothes. And no RAMEN. [Slight AU][Pairings unspecified]
1. Interesting

**A/N: I had a wonderful idea all of the sudden. It's amazing what you can make your mind think up when you are deathly bored. :D**

**READ AND REVIEW:3**

Chapter Number 1! 

"You're… you're kidding, Kakashi-sensei."

"I already told you, no. This is not a joke."

Sakura stood dumbfounded, jaw wide open, in front of an extremely old, abandoned, and broken down building miles from Konoha. Kakashi grinned at her. She made no reply and just turned to look at the kunoichi next to her, Ino.

And right now Ino was angry. Angry, bitchy, and hated by Sakura, especially since they were partners.

_Partners_.

Partners who had to spend who knew how long together in this empty, dilapidated building with walls that could fall in at any minute, rats that could be carrying all sorts of interesting diseases, and what was rumored to be ghosts.

The challenge, as Kakashi, Gai, Asuma, and Kurenai had explained to their squads, was to stay in this building with few supplies until they could find their way out - after they completed three complicated challenges.

And they were to be mixed up and put with unfamiliar partners. Each pair would go into a different entrance, so that they would likely be isolated for at least a very long amount of time.

Naruto stood up on the ground where they had been out in the field and raised his arm high into the air. "Kakashi-sensei! Kakashi-sensei! Hey, Kakashi-sensei!"

Kakashi sighed. "I'm not done giving instructions yet, Naruto."

"But – !"

"Now, you will be given a knapsack with two bags of food and two bottles of water for each person…"

"Kakashi-senseeeeiiiiiii," Naruto said in a singsong voice.

"Naruto, shut up," Sakura hissed through the side of her mouth.

"You will also have a box of matches…" Kakashi continued.

"Pick me! Pick me!" Naruto interrupted him again, waving his hand around.

"…some kunai and shuriken…"

"Are you done now, Kakashi-sensei? C'mon, pick me…" Naruto's hand was flailing around so wildly he was about to hit Sakura, Tenten, and Shikamaru in the head.

"What is this about, Naruto?" Kakashi asked tiredly.

"It's about the challenge!"

"Can it wait?"

"No, it can't, Kakashi-sensei, it's really, _really_ important!"

"How important?"

"_Really, __really,_ _**really**_ important!"

Kakashi sighed again. "Alright, ask."

"Is there ramen in there?" he inquired, pointing at the run-down building with such a sincerely unknowing expression, there could have been a question mark above his head.

A few of the genin snickered quietly. Sakura slapped herself in the forehead. Shikamaru shook his head and mumbled, "How troublesome."

"No," Kakashi replied vaguely. "No, Naruto, there is not any ramen in the abandoned, empty building. Any other questions?"

Neji raised his hand. Gai nodded to him and he asked, "How will we get the first challenge? Is there something we're supposed to do or find?"

"Good question," Kakashi said. "But we can't tell you. A good ninja always know what they're looking for, even if they don't know what they're looking for."

The genin all cocked their heads to the side and said, "Huh?" "What?" "I don't get it."

"Nice way of explaining things, Kakashi," Gai said sarcastically.

"I know."

"Okay!" Kurenai said. "Listen up! I'm going to give you all your partners." She held up a scroll with names written in dark ink across the paper for all of them to see. She began to read the pairs.

"Aburame, Shino and Hyuga, Neji… Akimichi, Choji and Inuzuka, Kiba… Rock Lee and Uchiha, Sasuke…"

"You're kidding me…" Sasuke mumbled, otherwise not giving any indication that he had heard Kurenai.

"Nara, Shikamaru and Uzumaki, Naruto… That's it for the boys. Now…"

"Great, I'm with the lazy one!" Naruto shouted exasperatedly.

"I heard that!" Shikamaru said.

"Tenten and Hyuga, Hinata… and that leaves Haruno, Sakura and Yamanaka, Ino."

Immediately, a heated argument began between Ino and Sakura. Kakashi tried to quiet them in vain – it turned into a kind of a catfight. Naruto was repeatedly calling Shikamaru lazy while Shikamaru just sighed and mumbled to himself.

Rock Lee approached Sasuke, seeming to come out of thin air, which just pissed Sasuke off more. "I will readily take this challenge!" he said.

"Alright, I get it!" Sasuke hissed. "Get out of my face…"

Kiba looked over at Choji, who was going through a bag of chips at rapid speed. His eyes grew large and Akamaru whimpered. Neji and Shino didn't acknowledge each other in any way. Hinata was silent while Tenten went on about boys being hotheaded, watching Sasuke yell at Rock Lee.

"This will be very interesting," Gai commented as the four jonin watched the crowd of kids becoming more and more chaotic.

Sakura and Ino grabbed each other by the collar of their clothes. Sasuke and Rock Lee were starting to get in a fistfight. Naruto was passionately talking about how lazy Shikamaru was with showy gestures. Choji asked over all the noise, "Anyone got some more food? I better eat while I can."

"Interesting doesn't even begin to describe this," Kakashi said.

End First Chapter


	2. Duct Tape No Jutsu

Chapter Number 2 Which I Finally Got Around to Writing!

The instructors gave all twelve genin an hour to do whatever they had to do before going into the abandoned building. There wasn't much that they really could do to prepare, except maybe get more food, but that wasn't allowed, so they pretty much gathered in groups to talk.

…And some weren't really talking, but rather, arguing.

Naruto was still yelling about lazy Shikamaru, of course. But he stopped once he heard Tenten's conversation with Hinata, Rock Lee, and Neji (who was off to the side, away from Hinata).

"Do you want to hear about the ghost in there?" she whispered.

Naruto immediately clambered over to the group. "A ghost?!" he shrieked. "There's a ghost in there?"

Just about everyone else could hear him, and so they all flocked to Tenten out of curiosity. Tenten sighed and said, "Okay, I guess I'll tell all of you."

"That building there is a huge old house, you know?"

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Right," Tenten continued. "There used to be a rich couple that lived there."

"Really?! WOW!" Naruto shouted.

Everyone stared at him. "That…" Tenten started, "…that wasn't the good part."

"Oh, okay," Naruto said.

"Sooo," Tenten continued again, "they lived there happily for about five years. Then, there was a war in the nearby village."

"Really?! WO –"

"NARUTO, SHUT UP!" Sakura said, stepping on his foot. Afterwards, she straightened her face and looked serenely at Tenten. "Please, go on."

"Okayyy…" she began again. "So, they weren't involved in it, until the man's brother was killed. Then he told his wife that he was going to go fight…"

"REALLY?! WO-"

"NA-RU-TOOOOOOOOO!!" Sakura roared. "…DUCT TAPE NO JUTSU!!"

Poof! A roll of duct tape appeared in Sakura's hands. She tackled Naruto and in the blink of an eye, Naruto was silenced by a thick band of gray tape over his mouth, wrapped several times around his head.

Sakura sighed happily and everyone returned to listening attentively to Tenten.

"Okay, then," she said. "So the man went to fight, and it wasn't long until a neighbor came to the house to tell the woman he had been killed."

"It was just a little spat in the village, though, wasn't it?" Ino asked. "I mean, was it really that bad?"

"Well, it must have been," Tenten replied, shrugging. "The woman, having lost her beloved, was sickened with grief. One day her husband's sword he used to fight was delivered to the home as an apology for his death. In her severe anguish, the woman stabbed herself with the sword."

Naruto mumbled something through the duct tape.

"Huh?" Kiba said.

"He's asking if she died," Sakura remarked with a mocking edge to her voice.

Tenten didn't answer. She only sighed and said, "So, anyway, now she haunts the house. People call her 'Lady Heartache'."

"'Lady Heartache?'" Kiba snickered.

"Oh, she's probably filled with sorrow over her love, even to this day!" Ino said passionately. "How tragically romantic!"

"How troublesome," Shikamaru said. "Now we gotta deal with this ghost chick."

"ALRIGHT!" Asuma shouted. "Everybody, get with your partner and wait for us to show you where to enter the building!"

Everyone grumbled and groaned and went to stand reluctantly by their partner. Sakura inched toward Ino and stopped when they were a few feet apart. Kakashi walked over to the pair and herded them over to a large set of double doors at the very front of the house.

"This is where you go in," Kakashi said.

"You're… you're kidding, right, Kakashi sensei?" Sakura mumbled.

"I already told you when we assigned partners. No, this isn't a joke."

She sighed, and turned to glare at Ino, who glared right back at her. Kakashi grabbed the door handle and opened it. Inside, shadows covered the room so that they couldn't see anything at all. It was pitch black. Sakura cautiously put one foot over the threshold, with Ino behind her.

"Um, Kakashi-sensei, this gives me the creeps…"

"Oh well."

With that, he gave them a shove, and Ino and Sakura landed in a pile on the dust coated floor. The door shut loudly after them, and they were enveloped in darkness.


End file.
